Sad news for us, but great news for Rosie the chocolate labrador, Sarah has left us to work closer to home, which means Rosie gets her mum home earlier every day!

What does this mean for you if Sarah was your first point of contact? Well that contact is now me, ably assisted by the rest of our team -being Becky, Paula, James and Justyna – and we all look forward to hearing from you.

Signing off for now until my next update,

Adina

From Wednesday 3 August, we will open until 8pm every Wednesday evening.

Speaking about the changes, Adina Holmes said:

For too long, the professions have operated a ‘you can see us when it’s convenient for us’ mentality. Obviously, people who are running businesses or working office hours find it difficult to see their accountant and we recognise that they may well not want to eat into valuable weekend family time.

Having spoken to a lot of people about this, we have decided to extend our office opening hours until 8pm every Wednesday, initially until the end of January 2011.

Our new opening hours will be as follows:

You can drop in at any time but, to ensure that your accountant is available, please make an appointment by calling 01392 879173 or contacting us via this link.

The Open photograph is a derivative work made from an original released under a Creative Commons Licence by Sean McMenemy http://www.flickr.com/photos/seanfx/ (Thank you Sean!)

HMRC have said that “people who only sell a few items and are not traders are unlikely to be liable to tax and will not be targeted by this campaign”.

A D Holmes & Co advises a number of traders using sites including eBay and Amazon as well as e-book publishers. Our specialist, in depth knowledge allows clients to make the most of their trading allowances and expenses so as to pay the minimum amount of tax.

Speaking about the HMRC’s announcement, A D Holmes & Co’s online tax expert, Adina Holmes said:

“HMRC has been threatening to do something about internet traders for some time but it is difficult to see how they will differentiate between genuine personal sales and traders. It’s inevitable that some innocent people will get caught up in this and they should take professional advice if they get a tap on the shoulder from the Revenue.

“Anybody who trades online does need to consider their tax position and taking advice from an accountant can make sure that your tax bill is limited. I have found, in the past, new clients coming to me who trade online who are failing to set off all their allowable expenses against their profits simply because they did not know what could be claimed. With the right advice, nobody trading online needs to pay more tax than necessary.”

The figures, based on property values in England and Wales, showed the average home down 2.3% over the past year at £160,995. he biggest falls were seen in the North East where prices are down 9.3% annually, followed by Wales with a 7.2% reduction and Yorkshire and Humber (-5.3%).

Figures from the BBC website for the South West region show a rosier picture. Average house prices in the region are £227,341 – recording an average increase of 5.9% but with a quarterly decrease of 3.8%.

In other news, figures released by the Bank of England showed a slight increase in the number of mortgages approved for those buying a new home, rising to 47,557 in March, the highest level since November 2010.

The previous change in Bank Rate was a reduction of 0.5 percentage points to 0.5% on 5 March 2009. A programme of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves was initiated on 5 March 2009. The most recent change in the size of that programme was an increase of £25 billion to a total of £200 billion on 5 November 2009.

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The Chancellor, George Osborne, has welcomed the news but has conceded that “we are not out of the woods yet”.

We will have further details including regional figures shortly. When we do, we will post an update on our Twitter feed @adholmesco

Our YouTube channel will also be up to date on this and other UK Economy news. You can view the videos and subscribe by clicking here.

Figures released by Devon County Council show that the claimant count fell from 10,159 in February to 9,988 in March, representing a 2% decrease month on month. The rate of the working age population who are in receipt of this out of work benefit remains the same at 2.2%.

This follows the trend seen nationally, although rates in Devon are falling faster. In comparison with neighbouring counties, the rate of JSA claimants in Devon is lower and has also remained lower the national average for the last twelve months.

Commenting on the news, Adina Holmes said

This is excellent news for the county. Devon has an economy that is particularly seasonal due in part to the tourism industry and so to see Devon’s unemployment figure falling faster than other regions so early in the year is really encouraging.

Devon has so much to offer and hopefully this year will be a bumper year for tourists visiting the area.

Devon County Council’s April 2011 Employment Brief can be downloaded here (in pdf format).

The headlines are:

• House prices increased by 0.5% in March
• On the three month on three month measure, prices rose by 0.6%
• Prices 0.1% higher than one year ago
• Mixed picture across UK regions in first quarter

Nationwide has reported a mixed picture in the first quarter of 2011, with prices rising in 8 out of 13 regions.  Yorkshire and Humberside has seen the strongest quarterly price rise with Northern Ireland slipping back with double digit price falls.

You can get the latest Nationwide House Price Index information by clicking here.

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Dairy Farmers of Britain (DFB) went into receivership on 3 June 2009 with its 1,813 farmer members losing significant amounts of money.

It was hoped that the loss of the milk monies retained in Member Investment Accounts, which were converted to A Ordinary shares on 27 March 2009, would be treated as a deduction against income on the basis that the amounts arose from trading activities, and a case was put to H M Revenue & Customs (HMRC) by the Receivers PricewaterhouseCoopers. However, the tax position on the various types of shares, loans and debts held by members of DFB has now been considered by HMRC and guidance has been issued by them in Revenue & Customs brief 05/10. A brief outline of what relief might be allowable for the purposes of income tax, capital gains tax and corporation tax is summarised below:

Income Tax
Members sold their milk to DFB and in accordance with the agreement between the two parties a fraction of the income earned by members was placed in Members Investment Accounts (MIAs). These were known as ‘milk retentions’.
Although the retentions were not paid directly to members, they were nonetheless income of the members, and should have been included in turnover when members prepared their annual financial accounts. Accounts approved after the appointment of the receiver need not include retentions in turnover. But financial accounts approved before 3 June 2009 cannot be reopened by reason alone of DFB going into receivership.
There is no scope in tax law for allowing capital losses against income.

Capital gains
Member’s ordinary shares, ‘B’ shares and preference shares in DFB are now of negligible value. Members will be able to claim capital losses equal to the cost of these shares when they are sold or deemed to be sold when a member makes a claim for negligible value. The ‘A’ shares issued on 27 March 2009 in exchange for debt might also attract capital losses if their cost is greater than nil, but from the information seen so far the cost would appear to be nil.
The debts that were converted into ‘A’ shares were the balances in members’ investment accounts (MIA) and capital accounts (MCA) at 27 March 2009. Further sums may have been credited to these accounts after that date and become irrecoverable. Provided they do not fall to be taken into account in computing income, members may be entitled to claim capital losses equal to these further sums. Any balances in the Member’s Liability Loan accounts not allowable in computing income might similarly qualify as capital losses.
Members may have held certain loan stocks in the company. The information held by HMRC suggests that the characteristics of the loan stocks mean that they were not chargeable assets for the purposes of capital gains so there can be no capital losses when the loans are disposed of. The amount of loan stock outstanding does not qualify as capital losses.

These tax implications are summarised in the table below.

Corporation Tax

Members who pay Corporation Tax may be able to claim relief for loans written off or reduced in value.
The table below shows a summary, taken from guidance issued by H M Revenue & Customs, of the different types of investments held in Dairy Farmers of Britain and whether a capital loss is available in respect of the different investments.

* The amount of the loss may be nil dependent upon the type of debt or investment that was converted into ‘A’ shares
** Loan Stock 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Where further information is required on any of the issues surrounding income tax or capital gains mentioned above please contact us on info@adholmes.co.uk or 01392 879173.